


Every War is Both Won and Lost

by dedicatedfollower467



Category: Supernatural, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Alternate Universe - Mutants, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Canonical Character Death, Child Abuse, Empath, Empath Dean Winchester, Gen, Gore, Mutant Sam Winchester, Mutants, Self-Mutilation, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 00:10:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 12,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedicatedfollower467/pseuds/dedicatedfollower467
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Winchester isn't a freaky mutant. John won't let him be one. He's going to make sure of it.</p><p>Dean Winchester isn't a freaky mutant, either. He's made sure of that himself.</p><p>(AU in which Dean and Sam are mutants. Eventual crossover with X-Men.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tell Me About It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bismoran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bismoran/gifts).



> The title comes from a quote by Barbara Kingsolver. "Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own."

Dean is probably around two years old when he realizes that other people (specifically his Mommy and Daddy) don’t hear other people’s feelings in the back of their heads like he does. It’s the first time he knows he’s different from other people, and he doesn’t like it.

“You’re so stupid!” Dean shouts. “Why can’t you be nice!”

“Dean, you have to tell me when something bothers you,” Mommy says. “I don’t just know how you’re feeling all the time.”

Dean looks up at her, confused. “You can’t?” Mommy shakes her head and laughs. “No, honey. That’s why you have to tell me how you feel. People don’t just know how other people are feeling. I can’t. Daddy can’t. That’s why people have so many problems. So in the future, let me know.”

Dean frowns. That’s not true. Dean knows how people are feeling all the time. He knows that right now Mommy is frustrated with him but also thinks he’s funny. (He doesn’t understand why Mommy thinks he’s funny, but he thinks it has something to do with him still being little, which he isn’t, he’s a big boy.) He knows that Mommy and Daddy get angry at each other a lot. He can feel Mommy’s disappointment in the back of his head, and how Daddy feels all uncomfortable with his life. Dean can feel that his Mommy and Daddy love him. He also knows that they love each other, and sometimes it’s hard to fall asleep at night because he can feel how much they love each other and how they want to touch each other and his pee-pee gets hard and that’s really annoying and makes it really hard to sleep.

Dean thought that Mommy and Daddy could feel those things too, so they knew when he was annoyed or tired or cranky or whatever. He can feel when his Daddy’s cranky so he stays quiet and doesn’t bother him, and he knows when his Mommy is sad or mad because Daddy is being stupid, so he always tries to cheer her up. Realizing that Mommy and Daddy can’t do that for him is weird.

“Dean, honey?” Mommy says. He can feel that she’s worried because he hasn’t answered her yet. “Can you promise to tell me how you feel, instead of getting mad at me?”

Dean nods. “Yeah. I’ll tell you how I’m feeling.”

Mommy is happy then, and that makes Dean happy, so he gets happy again. Feeling Mommy happy is like having a ray of sunshine in his head. When he and Mommy and Daddy are all happy, that’s the best feeling in the world.


	2. Big Brother Instinct

Dean is four when he starts getting feelings from his baby brother or sister. Mommy and Daddy told him all about why Mommy’s tummy is getting bigger, and sometimes she lets him put his hands on her tummy and he can feel the baby kicking around inside.

But the first time he knows that there’s really a person in there is when he feels the baby’s happiness in the back of his head.  Dean can't help but sit upright and stare at Mommy’s big round belly when he feels it, because he wasn’t expecting that third person in the back of his head.

The baby doesn’t have a lot of feelings, and they go in and out of the back of his head. Mostly the baby is just happy. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable, and sometimes it gets scared, and but Dean doesn’t really think the baby knows enough to feel much. That’s okay, though, because when the baby comes out of Mommy’s tummy, Dean is going to teach it all about the world, and all about feelings, and how to be happy.

Part of him hopes the baby will be like him. Because then he won’t have to worry about telling the baby how he feels, because it’s annoying and boring. The baby won’t ever have to tell Dean how it feels, because Dean will know. Dean’s gonna watch out for the baby.

Dean is left at home with friends of Mommy’s when the baby is born, but he wishes he could be with Mommy and Daddy and the baby in the hospital. He wants to be there to help take care of the baby. Mommy and Daddy can’t feel people in the back of their heads, so they won’t know what it needs or wants. Dean can, and he’s already good at making things easier for Mommy and Daddy, so he can make things easier for the baby too.

Mommy’s friend feels happy when she tells Dean that he has a new little brother. Dean finds it really hard to get to sleep then.

Daddy comes home the next day and brings Dean to the hospital to meet Mommy and the new baby. Samuel. His brother’s name is Samuel, but that’s difficult to say so Daddy says to call him Sammy because that’s easier.

Sammy is happy. Mommy is tired, but happy. Daddy is happy and proud. And they love each other. Mommy and Daddy love Sammy and Dean. And knowing that, feeling that in the back of his head, makes him so happy, too.

Dean asks to hold Sammy, so Mommy and Daddy help him to sit up and hold his little brother. Sammy looks up at him with great big eyes. Dean giggles because Sammy looks a little ugly and doesn’t have much of an expression at all on his face, but he can feel the little tingle of happiness in the back of his head. It’s good. Dean’s practically floating on all the happiness.

It’s a little overwhelming, all this feeling. Dean can’t keep the grin off of his face.

When Mommy and Daddy bring Sammy home, Dean makes sure to take good care of his brother. He tells his parents when Sammy is hungry, or wet, or tired. Because he can feel Sammy in the back of his head, he knows when anything is itchy or uncomfortable for his little brother.

Daddy and Mommy start looking at him weird, because he’s always right about how Sammy feels. The confusion dumps into the back of his head, and then he starts feeling suspicion. He doesn’t like the feeling of suspicion, so he starts to pretend like he’s just noticed things that Mommy and Daddy haven’t yet.

Dean does everything he can to keep his family happy, because happiness is his favorite feeling. He can’t stop the anger and the disappointment, and the problems that his parents have, but he can take care of Sammy. He’s always going to take care of Sammy.


	3. This Overwhelming Burden of Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas!

Dean wakes up because Mommy is scared. He’s figured out how to sleep through Mommy and Daddy’s emotions (especially the ones when they want to touch and kiss and gross stuff like that), but the fear he gets from Mommy wakes him up because it’s so strong. And then he figures out she’s scared for Sammy, and now he’s scared, too.

Then Mommy is hurt and Dean gasps. He’s felt his Mommy get hurt before, when she has a headache or that one time when she cut herself when she was cooking, or every month or so when she has all kinds of strong feelings and cramps in her tummy. But this hurts a lot more than that. More than anything ever. He can feel his Mommy’s pain in the back of his head and he wants to cry.

She screams, but he doesn’t need to hear her scream to know that she’s hurt real bad. Dean is scared and confused and he doesn’t know what’s going on. He tries to head out to her.

Daddy is scared for Mommy and Sammy, for a while, but then he relaxes. Dean tries to run to his Daddy, to tell him that Mommy is hurt, he has to help her, but the pain in the back of his head makes it difficult to move. Dean doesn’t understand why Daddy doesn’t know that Mommy is scared and hurt and angry.

He finally gets to Sammy’s room when Daddy’s feelings go from relaxation to fear and anger and upset and pain and the emotions pour through his brain so hard Dean can barely think. He’s terrified. His Daddy is scared and his Mommy is hurt bad and that means Dean is afraid.

Sammy is upset, too, and those little tiny, confused thoughts fall through Dean’s head. Dean can barely hold onto his baby brother when Daddy hands him the bundle. The order goes through his head, “Take your brother outside as fast as you can! Don't look back! Now Dean! Go!”

Dean runs. He doesn’t know how he does it, but he manages, stumbling and almost dropping Sammy on the stairs. Mommy is hurt, Daddy is practically screaming inside his head, and Sammy cries out every time he gets jolted on the stairs.

He can’t handle it, he can’t, he can’t handle the feelings in his head it’s eating him up alive.

Dean finally stops when the feelings in his head are muted enough that he can think. He’s still overwhelmed, and so he needs to comfort his little brother. “It’s okay, Sammy,” he says, trying to block out Daddy and Mommy and the pain.

Then Daddy catches him up, and the feeling of fear intensifies. As Daddy hauls him away, it’s not the sudden explosion or being pulled off his feet without warning that stops Dean’s heart.

Suddenly, Mommy isn’t in his head anymore.

Gone. Not like when he gets far enough away from her that he can’t tell what she’s feeling, but gone like there’s a huge hole in his head where her feelings used to be.

Dean sits with his Daddy, and he can’t speak, can’t move. All he can do is poke at the hole in his head and the raw, empty feeling there, like picking at a scab.

And just as bad as the hole where Mommy was, there’s Daddy. Daddy’s feelings are sadness so bad they feel like a weight on his brain. He can’t keep his head up or get out from the horrible heaviness of how sad Daddy is without Mommy.

Over the next few months, Daddy’s sadness becomes anger, anger so bad that it flows into Dean’s whole brain so that he can’t tell what feelings are his and what ones are Daddy’s now. He quits talking because it’s hard to understand other people or talk when he’s trying to sort out the bad feelings in his head.

He never used to like it when Daddy left, but now he lives for the times when it’s just him and Sammy and Daddy’s friends.

One day, when Daddy comes back, he’s so terribly angry and sad that Dean nearly tears himself apart. He runs away from his father and sits in his room with his hands over his head, and he doesn’t know how to deal with these feelings.

He wants them all to go away. Dean doesn’t want any of them anymore. He doesn’t want to feel, not like his. He screams and clutches his head and tells all those feelings to leave. Just leave.

And then, somehow, they do. These feelings of Daddy’s he’s had for months go quieter and quieter until he can barely even feel them in the back of his head. It’s so much better.

He decides he’s never going to listen to anybody’s feelings again. Not even Sammy’s, not anymore.

That way he won’t feel pain.


	4. Monsters in the Mirror

Dean is eight when his Dad tells him what a mutant is. His head’s been empty of other people’s feelings for four years, and he would have forgotten about his talent completely if it weren’t for the occasional stray emotion from Sammy drifting across his thoughts. Dad is turning Dean into a hunter just like him, and Dean likes it.

They’re working on a case now. It’s hard to keep things quiet from Sammy, but they manage. Dean’s good at keeping secrets, and Sammy doesn’t like to listen to Dad anyway, so it works.

 This new case is weird, because it doesn’t really fit any of the patterns that Dean’s learned to look for. Not that he’s been looking long, but Dad finally let him in on this case, so he’s throwing his whole heart and soul into this.

The thing is, it doesn’t look like ghosts, or vampires, or werewolves, or anything, really. Dad is afraid it’s a tulpa or even something he’s never seen before, which is going to be awful if it’s true, because it’s going to be really hard to kill it.

As far as he and Dad can tell, something or someone in the area is kind of randomly creating water. Rain in a part of the country that should practically be in drought mode by this time of year, lakes and rivers where there previously weren’t any, sudden geysers gushing out of the ground and destroying everything in their paths.

Dad doesn’t let Dean come with him when he goes out to investigate. He makes him stay home and look after Sammy. Hanging out with Sammy is fun (and being in charge is the best) but Dean keeps checking his watch and wondering when Dad’s gonna get back, because he wants to know what the thing is.

(It’s not a question of if. Dean doesn’t think in ifs, because if he starts thinking in ifs, then he wouldn’t be able to keep watching his Dad leave him and Sam behind. He needs his Dad, and if he started to doubt whether or not his Dad would coming back, he would find a way to make John Winchester stay.)

Dad does come home, eventually, angry and swearing. Dean sends Sammy to bed, and his brother doesn’t argue. They both know better than to antagonize their Dad when he’s like this.

Dean stays up though. It’s stupid, but he wants to know how the hunt went.

“So,” he says quietly, “what was it?”

Dad tosses back his beer. “Mutant,” he growls.

Dean’s heard the word before, whispered in hallways and shouted across classrooms at school, but for some reason it’s never really registered before. He’d always thought it was just a generic insult, like ‘freak’ or ‘weirdo,’ that kids called each other mutants because they were odd. He never realized they were actually a thing.

“What is a mutant?” he asks. Dean needs to know the facts if he’s gonna be a hunter and keep his brother safe.

Dad waves his beer bottle around vaguely, as though encompassing the whole world. “They’re freaks of nature,” he says. “Born to normal people like you and me, but they have these freaky powers. They can do shit like shoot lasers out of their eyes and teleport and control the elements and read your mind and stuff.”

Dean stills at the mention of mind reading, and tries very, very hard not to think about the low buzzing in the back of his skull that are Dad’s emotions trying to make themselves known in his mind. “Are they monsters?” he asks. “Did you kill it?”

Dad nods decisively. “Yeah, they’re monsters, same as vampires and werewolves, and they oughtta all be killed,” he says. “They’re not even really human. But no, I didn’t kill this one, first of all because too many people think they’re real people, like us. And second, because some other mutants came out to stop me.”

“Other mutants?”

“Mutants live in packs or nests, like vampires. This one gave itself a name. ‘The Brotherhood of Mutants.’ Run by a crazy mutant who can control metal. He destroyed my gun.”

Dean thinks for a moment. “Do they have any weaknesses?”

“As far as I know, no,” Dad says. “And it’s fucking annoying.”

When Dean crawls into the bed he’s sharing with Sammy that night, he decides he’s not a mutant. He can’t be. He doesn’t listen to anybody’s feelings, so that means he’s not using his freaky powers. Plus, his powers aren’t really all that freaky anyways, just like, heightened intuition or whatever. Also, he doesn’t live in a pack. He’s got Sammy and Dad, and three people is hardly a pack, and besides, it’s not a pack because animals and monsters live in packs. Sammy and Dad are family.

And finally, he can’t be a mutant, because he can’t. Because mutants are monsters, and Dean isn’t a monster. 


	5. Mutual Understanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!

Dean is thirteen and appropriately awed by the Brotherhood of Mutants and its ringleader.

Magneto looks like a superhero. Or at least a super-something. He’s got this gorgeous helmet and a badass purple cape, and he’s so colorful. The man is like something out of a comic book, all sleek and shiny, and he’s not afraid to wear bright colors or to stand out. And yet, it’s not that he needs people to notice him for himself. He wants people to notice him because he stands for something.

It kind of makes up for the fact that Dean’s gun is currently a twisted knot on the ground. C’mon, Dean can appreciate that the dude has style, even if he is kind of the bad guy in this situation.

If Magneto makes any kind of threat against his brother though, he’s going to live to regret it. Dean knows where to find a wooden stake.

Dean’s guarding Sammy but trying to look like he’s not. He’s just inserted himself in front of his little brother, between him and the man in the billowing cape. At this point, there’s not a hell of a lot he can do, but right now it doesn’t look like Magneto is actively hostile. (Wooden stakes. Dean is definitely gonna be carrying around wooden stakes from now on.)

Their eyes meet, despite Magneto’s helmet, and Dean can’t help but feel that there’s a kindred spirit here. Here, too, is someone who would do anything for those he cares about.

Dean’s not supposed to feel this way. Not about monsters. Not about mutants.

Magneto twists his hand just slightly, and the lump of metal that used to be Dean’s gun rises into the air. Dean already feels kind of guilty about the bullet. Also, a little nervous, because from what he’s learned, the Brotherhood of Mutants doesn’t just let attacks lie.

Magneto lowers his gaze to consider the metal. “Children as young as you should not have guns.”

Dean bristles at that. “What makes you think you know anything about what I should and should not have? You ever had to fight for your life as a kid?”

Then Magneto raises his head and considers him, and their eyes meet again. “I should have clarified. Children as young as you should not _have_ to have guns.”

That’s when Dad fucks everything up.

Dean doesn’t flinch when the gun goes off. Magneto doesn’t even pause, just lazily flicks a hand up and stops the bullet mid-air. Then he clenches his fist, and Dean’s heart leaps into his throat as his dad is dragged into the room by metal that twists around his body.

Dad is snarling, his face distorted into an animalistic fury. “Let go of me, you freak.” He jerks on every word, struggling against the metal bonds.

Magneto, on the other hand, is coolly composed, his hands crossed in front of his chest. “I suppose you were the one who has been harassing young Alison?”

“You call her Alison like she’s actually a person,” Dad spits. “She looks like something puked up on her, and she spreads disease. That’s literally her so-called power. You think that kind of creature deserves life?”

Magneto’s eyebrows lower aggressively. “She is a thirteen-year-old girl.”

Dean winces. Thirteen? Really? He didn’t know that. He didn’t know that he was helping his Dad hunt a little kid. That’s fucked up.

But she’s a monster. She’s been spreading Black Plague and typhoid and rheumatic fever and dysentery. People have died because of her, including a four-year-old boy.

But then, if she’s a mutant, maybe one who’s only just discovered her abilities, maybe she can’t control it. Maybe she’s just as scared of her mutation as everybody else is. For the first time in almost five years, Dean wonders if it wouldn’t be nice to have those feelings in the back of his head again. Just so he could understand people.

Dad shakes his head. “She’s a monster. Like you. I’d wipe you all out if I could.”

Magneto’s helmet obscures his face, but Dean imagines a lip curling disdainfully. Dad starts to gasp and choke as the metal bands close around his neck.

Sammy is the one who starts forward now. “Stop it! Leave our dad alone!”

Magneto turns his head for a second, but it’s not Sammy he looks at. It’s Dean. Their eyes meet again.

Then Magneto turns back to Dad, and the bands release one by one. “Be grateful that your children are here, and that I do not consider you enough of a threat to kill.

“Now, I have a frightened child to comfort.”


	6. Said in Confidence

Dean is sixteen when Sammy comes to him one night while Dad is out on a job. He looks nervous, in a way he’s never seen his little brother look. It’s not quite a guilty look (Dean knows what that looks like all too well) but it’s not embarrassed either. Sammy looks like he’s almost scared of something.

“What’s up?” he asks, hiding his book under his pillow.

“I don’t know,” says Sammy.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” He’s a little bit tempted tap into that long-unused ability to feel other people’s emotions, but he resists. Sammy will tell him soon enough.

Sammy sits on the edge of the bed next to him, hunching his shoulders and curling his fingers in the blanket. “I don’t know,” he repeats. “I gotta show you something, though.”

“What?”

Sammy takes in a deep breath, then leans slightly forward and parts his hair to the left side. Hiding deep in his brother’s dark hair is a round, dark lump. It’s maybe half an inch tall and about as big around as a Ping-Pong ball. It’s covered something that looks like fuzzy fur.

Dean reaches out to touch to the lump. It’s firm, and the covering is kind of soft. It’s just growing out of Sammy’s head like it’s supposed to be there. The hair parts around it, so pretty soon here Sammy won’t be able to just cover it with his mop like he’s been doing.

“There’s another one on the other side,” Sammy says, and he parts his hair on the right so that Dean can see the perfectly symmetrical lump growing there.

Dean is not panicking. He’s not thinking about mutants, how sometimes they get weird things growing on their bodies that don’t look normal. Besides, Sam doesn’t have any powers. “That’s kinda weird, Sammy. Think you should get it checked out?”

“That’s not all,” whispers Sammy. “Watch.”

Sammy holds out both hands, his fingers splayed out all girly like he’s looking at his nails or something. Then he scrunches up his face tight and wrinkles his nose, and generally looks ridiculous. He’s practically vibrating.

And then fire shoots out the tips of his fingers, a foot into the air.

Dean does not scream. He possibly shouts, or even yelps, but he does not scream. Besides, it’s okay to be a little startled. After all, his brother just shot flames out of his fingertips, he’s allowed to not be expecting that.

Dean swallows. “You should probably keep this quiet from Dad,” he says.

Sammy frowns. “Why?”

“Because-this-stuff-kinda-makes-you-look-like-a-mutant.” Dean spits the words out as fast as he can. He doesn’t have to explain. Sammy’s eyes widen and he pulls away slightly. They both know how Dad is about mutants.

“Just keep it quiet,” Dean says. “I’ll help.”


	7. Excision for the Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the warning have changed: this chapter depicts rather graphic violence towards a child, perpetrated by their parent. If you think this would disturb you, there are notes at the bottom which contain a non-graphic summary of this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the warning have changed: this chapter depicts rather graphic violence towards a child, perpetrated by their parent. If you think this would disturb you, there are notes at the bottom which contain a non-graphic summary of this chapter.

Keeping it quiet doesn’t really work for long. The first reason is because Sammy’s – Dean hesitates to call them _horns_ but that’s kind of what they look like – _lumps_ grow so damn fast. By the time Dad returns from his hunt, the little stubs are poking through Sammy’s hair and starting to attract weird looks at school. Dean makes him wear a beanie and pretends that will fix everything, even as the horns’ growth shows no signs of stopping or slowing any time soon.

The second reason is because Sammy is absolute shit at controlling his flame-fingers. Whenever Sammy is scared or upset or angry or really feeling any kind of strong emotion, the fire shoots out his fingertips. Sammy has gotten detention for apparently setting fires at three different schools already, and people are starting to question the beanie in the middle of spring in Texas.

It’s when Sammy comes home and admits that he’s been suspended for the next three days because of suspected arson that Dad gets fed up.

“We’re dealing with this now,” Dad says. “I’m not letting any son of mine turn into demonspawn.”

Dad gets a big pair of cable cutters from out of the back of the Impala and drags Sammy into the motel bathroom. Dean trails behind, peering in the mirror from behind a half-open door. With one sharp movement, Dad rips the hat off of Sammy’s head and raises the cable cutters.

Sammy flinches and cries out when Dad takes the cutters to Sammy’s right horn. Dean can’t help flinching a little himself, watching as their father squeezes the tool together with all his strength just to cut a little bit into the firm tissue. Despite years of practice, it’s a struggle to block out the lance of pain and fear and betrayal that shoots from Sammy into his brain. He almost steps forward when he sees the blood trickling down onto his little brother’s scalp, but hangs back. This is for the best, really – if Sammy hides his weirdness, things will be easier for all of them.

Knowing that doesn’t making watching Sammy’s tears, or trying to ignore his pain, or watching the way the blood trickles down into his face from the mutilated stumps of cartilage and bone any easier.

And, as has become usual when Sammy is this upset, four foot flames jump out of his fingers, scorching the ceiling of the bathroom.

Dad doesn’t even pause before turning on the faucet and shoving Sammy’s hands under the running water. Sammy yelps as the fire is extinguished, but it’s gone, out like a light.

“You listen to me, Samuel Winchester.” The tone of Dad’s voice is low and threatening, and the last time Dean heard that tone, the person Dad had been talking to ended up with a chest full of lead. It’s enough to send shivers down Dean’s spine, knowing that Dad is talking to his little brother like he’s going to kill him. Like he’s a monster.

“You _will_ learn to control this fire shit. You’re not going to flame up at any time. If I see you with flames out your fingers, I will douse them in water. If you get detention or suspended again for starting fires, I will spank you, I don’t care how old you are. If none of that works, I will ground you. If you don’t learn to control this, I will find a way to _force_ you to control it. Do you understand?”

Sammy nods, tears still streaming down his cheeks, but Dean can tell by the hiccupping sobs that he’s trying to stop, to keep it together. To ‘man up,’ as their Dad would say.

“Good,” Dad says, and then he walks away with the dripping cable cutters, leaving Sammy behind, bloody and in pain.

Dean stands at the door for a second as Sammy continues to hiccup and cry and shake, wrestling the feelings back under control behind the wall he’s maintained for so many years, until he can’t even feel the distant buzzing anymore. It only takes a moment before Dean goes to him and presses his chest to his little brother’s back as he reaches over to shut off the water coming from the faucet. Then he wraps Sammy up in a hug as his legs finally give out and he collapses into Dean’s arms.

“It hurts, Dean,” Sammy gasps.

“I know it does,” Dean whispers into Sammy’s ear, smoothing down the hair that is matted and sticky with blood. “But it’s really for the best.”

Sammy shudders and leans against him. Dean knows that blood is probably getting all over his shirt, but he can’t bring himself to care. “Really?” Sammy says, voice still shaky with pain.

“Yeah.” Dean knows there’s not a lot of conviction in his voice, but he can’t doubt his father. He can’t doubt that this is ultimately the best thing, for Sammy and for them all. “Why don’t you get in the shower, get all this blood cleaned up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sammy's horn-like growths are growing too fast. To deal with this, John Winchester takes cable cutters and cuts them off. This is an extremely painful and emotional moment, both for Sam and for Dean, and Dean begins to doubt his father.


	8. Taking a Third Option

Dean is twenty, and he hasn’t heard even a buzz from anyone’s emotions in four years. He has a GED and lives out of the back of the Impala, chasing monsters around the country. The hunting life has stolen all other options out from under him. He’s already come to understand that he’s never going to have a choice beyond which monster to hunt next.

Sammy is sixteen, insists he wants to be called “Sam,” and he cuts his own horns now. Dean’s used to seeing little spots of blood in the shower where his little brother forgot to clean up. At least, as used to it as he can be, because knowing his little brother is hurt still sets him off in all kinds of bad ways. Sam’s a hunter, too, now, but his life somehow seems different.

Because Sam is smart. Really smart. Book-smart. College smart. Sammy doesn’t want to get a GED and keep traipsing around the country going after monsters. He wants to further his education, and Dean is pretty sure he could do it, too.

“Hey, Dean, get this.” Sam is bent over a library computer. Dean figures he’s found some research on the new hunt so he leans over his brother to peer at the screen.

It’s not research on the hunt. The top of the screen proudly proclaims it is the website for “Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.”

“What’s this?” Dean says, leaning over. “School for geniuses or something?”

“No, Dean,” Sam whispers, almost breathless. “I think it’s for people like me. You know.” His voice lowers until it’s barely even a puff of air from his lips. “Mutants.”

“You’re not a mutant, Sammy,” Dean hisses back. Because he’s not. Mutants are monsters, and his little brother is not a monster. (Not like Dean.) He’s just got a little problem.

Sam looks up at him, holding his gaze in a steady, measured look. “I’m a mutant, Dean,” he says, and his voice is loud enough that Dean can’t help glancing around to hope that nobody heard it. “I’m not under a witch’s spell or a demon curse or some kind of pagan god thing. As far as we know, nothing’s causing this. It’s just the way I am. That’s the definition of a mutation.”

“Shut up,” Dean says, but Sam doesn’t stop talking.

“I’m not proud of it,” he says, “But I’m not going to pretend I just have some skin problem or something. I’m a mutant, Dean, and it looks like this school might help.”

Dean skims the website as quickly as possible. “It doesn’t say anything in there about mutants,” he says. “Just this ‘gifted children and young adults’ bullshit.”

“Read between the lines, Dean,” Sam says quietly. “Look more closely at the implications behind the words. ‘Children who may not fit in with normal society.’ ‘Young adults who feel out of control.’ It practically screams mutants, Dean.”

“Even supposing you are a mutant, which you’re not,” Dean says, “What if you’re projecting because something like this is what you’re looking for? What if it really is just a school for nerds, and not a school for… people like you?”

Sam seriously considers that for a few moments. “I know it’s a possibility,” Sam says quietly, “but I can’t give the dream up. I can’t stop hoping for a place where I can just be me.”

“Hey.” Dean grips Sam’s shoulder. “You can be you with me and dad.”

Sam sighs and turns back to the computer. “No, Dean, I really can’t.”


	9. Coming or Going

“I’m going to be an adult in three months, Dad, I’m capable of making my own decisions, and this is what I want to do with my life. Why can’t you understand that?”

Dean isn’t used to hearing Sam get that loud. Yeah, he knows his little brother can easily get really angry and upset, but this is much more than a couple of outbursts when he’s thirteen and hormonal. This is the first time Dean has really heard _Sam_ and not _Sammy_ get angry. His voice is as deep as it is loud, and it’s full of a righteous timbre that makes him kind of agree with his brother.

Dean knows what they’re arguing about. Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.

Turns out, Dr. Xavier has indeed created a school for mutants. Sam sent a letter to Xavier and Xavier wrote back to tell him that yes, he did focus primarily on mutants, along with an acceptance letter to begin the school whenever he felt he wanted to.

Sam wants to go. Dad is furious that his son (who is _not_ a mutant, just has a little problem they haven’t figured out yet) got accepted into a damn school for _muties_ , and he’s not going to let him go.

Dean’s heard this argument before. Normally he’s there to step into the middle of it, to calm the argument down or at least convince Sam to go upstairs and read a book or something.

This time he was out getting groceries and now it’s gotten out of hand. He opens the door with a sigh, expecting to find his brother and father shouting at each other from opposite sides of the room.

Instead Sam is just inches from Dad’s face, his hands splayed against the wall behind John’s head. Flames are shooting out the tips of his fingers and burning the wallpaper – any second now the fire alarm is going to go off. Blood is trickling down his forehead from where he apparently neglected to wipe it away after cutting his horns. He looks like a dangerous mutant.

He looks like a monster.

Dean’s heart leaps into his throat, and for the first time in over seventeen years he wishes that he knew what Sam was feeling. Because he knows, he _knows_ that Sam’s not a monster, not like this, and he has to know what his brother is thinking, why he’s doing this.

Dean travels right to that wall in his brain, planning on breaking through to the other side where he knows Sammy’s and Dad’s emotions roil. Instead he slams hard into that blockage and bounces. Frantic, he tries to bash through the wall again, but just keeps coming up against all the stops he has put into his brain.

So he quits trying to break through mentally and instead drops the groceries to the ground, racing across the small room which seems impossibly huge. He grabs Sam by the shoulder and tears him away from their father, slamming his hands into his little brother’s chest as soon as he’s got him away.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Dean shouts.

Sam gapes at him for a long moment. “I was… I’m sorry. I was trying to explain…”

“You were trying to kill me.” Dad’s voice is as cold as it ever is when he’s hunting a monster. “I guess you really are a mutie freak, aren’t you?”

Dean feels Sam’s whole body flinch at the slur, the muscles twitching under his own hands. He still wishes, deeply, frantically, with every part of his being, that he could feel Sam’s emotions in the back of his own brain, but he’s also been around Sam long enough to be able to recognize his little brother’s emotions through tone and body language. That flinch – that’s an emotional pain he’s seen before on his little brother.

Dean can’t help but turn around, shifting his protection off of his father and onto his brother. He doesn’t quite spread his hands out in the protective stance he used to use, but he does bend his knees a little bit and lets his fingers curl slightly, ready to pop up into fists if necessary.

“You’re a monster,” Dad says. “You want to go off to your little nest with the other monsters? Go on then. Get out. You walk out that door? Don’t bother to come back.”

Dean doesn’t have to be touching Sam or even looking at him to feel the way his head tosses back, how his shoulders tense and his legs stiffen. “Fine,” Sam says, and unlike earlier, it is quiet, soft. “All right. I’ll go.”

Sam moves toward the door, acting like he’s going to leave without a bag, without even wiping the blood off of his face. Dean steps forward one step, two steps.

“Sam,” he says.

His brother looks back, once. “No. He’s right. I’m a mutant freak, and we don’t belong with normal people like you, do we?”

The door slams, and Dean knows, his brother is never coming back. Because he didn’t know what to say. Because he couldn’t feel the way Sam felt. It’s his fault.


	10. Another Way to Go

Dean is twenty-four, and he hasn’t even spoken on the phone with Sam for the past four months. It’s killing him inside, to know that Sam just doesn’t want him in his life anymore. For two years now he’s wished he hadn’t shut off the one part of himself that would tell him how to talk to Sam, how to let him know that actually, Dean doesn’t care if he’s a freak or a mutant or whatever, and actually, he does still love him.

It’s too late. Whether it’s two years or twenty years too late doesn’t matter anymore.

He throws himself into the cases instead of dwelling on it. Dad buys himself a truck so big that Dean wonders sometimes if he can even see the ground, and he bequeaths the Impala to Dean. The two of them split up, to cover more ground, and also because for the first time in Dean’s life he’s beginning to doubt John Winchester’s wisdom.

It’s hard to admit it to himself, but he’s pretty sure that despite everything, he _is_ a mutant. Not quite like Sammy, but a mutant nonetheless. And he is confident that while Dean, maybe, is a bit of a monster, Sam isn’t one. And if one mutant isn’t a monster, then there’s a possibility that actually, none of them are.

So he leaves his father’s thoughts behind and decides to look into a case. It seems like it’s probably just a haunting at first, but when he gets there he doesn’t pick up any EMF. (He’s created a new EMF reader from a Walkman because Dad took the real one with him and left Dean to figure things out on his own.)

When he hears about the missing kid that the other children at school shrug off as the freak, and whose own parents agree that it’s better that she’s gone, he starts to wonder.

So it really isn’t all that surprising when this ‘hunt’ leads him to an abandoned warehouse where a fourteen-year-old girl with telekinesis and literally pitch-black skin is hiding from the people she grew up with.

Dean could shoot her. If Dad had been the one holding the gun, he probably would have. But she hasn’t killed anybody, though she’s come close, and even if she had killed somebody, it’s pretty clear that whatever she’s doing, she’s been doing by accident.

He wishes like anything that he could break through those blocks on his mind, so that he knew how to help this girl. Instead, he ends up setting the gun down and sitting beside her as she shakes and sobs. Eventually, he puts on arm around her, and it’s surprising how easy it is, how much like taking care of Sammy used to feel.

Magneto and the Brotherhood show up not an hour later. The girl has fallen asleep on his shoulder, and though Dean knows he’s probably going to be stiff and sore when she finally wakes up, he figures she’s worth it.

Magneto regards them calmly, and Dean is struck once again by how gorgeous that cape is, how brilliant the colors of the costume. He wonders if Magneto remembers the thirteen-year-old boy who met his gaze without flinching over a decade ago.

Then Magneto takes off his helmet, and the sharp lines and acute angles and perfectly symmetrical curves disappear to reveal an older gentleman with a sad face, weathered with pain and softened by age.

“So, the son of the hunter,” Magneto says quietly.

Dean shrugs. “Son of a hunter,” he agrees. “But brother to a mutant.” He can’t quite add, “and a mutant himself” to the end of the statement, but he wishes he could.

One of the other members of the Brotherhood – he doesn’t remember her name – comes forward to fold the girl into her arms, brushing her hair back out of her face as she does so. Dean lets her take the girl and shakes his arm out as he stands. The girl will be better off with the Brotherhood than she probably would be anywhere else.

As the Brotherhood get ready to leave, Dean can’t help but blurt out. “Magneto.”

Magneto turns to look back at him, motioning for the rest of the Brotherhood to move on ahead. “Yes?” he says.

“What if there was a mutant,” Dean says quietly, “who knew what their power was, but had stopped it from happening? And then, when they tried to use it again they just… couldn’t.”

Magneto tilts his head. “Is this a hypothetical question?”

Dean shrugs and looks down at his feet. “Not really,” he breathes.

Magneto reaches out a hand to him. “I think in that case we might just be able to help.”

Dean doesn’t take the hand, but he does step forward to stand by Magneto’s side, and they walk out to meet the rest of the Brotherhood together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So is that a bit of twist you weren't expecting? :)


	11. Open Wounds and Empty Souls

It’s… weird, being with the Brotherhood.

First of all, despite finally acknowledging that his brother definitely is a mutant, and that he probably is as well, Dean can’t shake the feeling that he ought to be ganking these people, not making nice with them. There’s one dude (the others call him _Toad_ and isn’t that an apt name) who fell out of the “ugly” tree and hit every branch on the way down. There’s also a _huge_ fat guy called the Blob. Dean pretty quickly learns to avoid mentions of the guy’s weight.

Magneto promised that they could help him, but so far they haven’t actually _done_ anything yet. Dean has just spent a couple of days living in their safe house, cooking food and helping to take care of the young mutants who have either been found or come to them for shelter and safety. He even met the girl (now a woman) that Dad had tried to kill all those years ago – Alison now calls herself Infection and is in full control of her disease-spreading powers (Dean still privately thinks she’s ugly as sin, but he’s not gonna tell her that).

Infection is the first person to ask him about his power, because even he has to admit he doesn’t really look all that much like a mutant.

“So what’s up with you?” she says. “Got some kind of psychic mind-thingy?”

Dean shrugs. “Kinda. I can feel other people’s emotions in my head. That is I used to be able to.”

She frowns. “And now, what? You just can’t anymore? That’s not how mutation works.”

Dean can feel himself coloring. “Magneto thinks I might have put some kind of unconscious block on my abilities,” he says, even though he knows perfectly well the block isn’t unconscious at all.

Infection lowers her head and mutters, “Wish I could’ve put a block on my abilities as a kid.”

Dean winces. He feels for her, he really does. Sure, he doesn’t have his weird feeling-reading shit anymore (Magneto says it’s most likely a power called empathy), but he’s still pretty fluent in body language and tone of voice, and he can imagine how terrifying it would’ve been to accidentally kill people because you were scared or angry, through a power that made people get sick and languish in pain until they died.

But even though he’s lived without it for years, not having his empathy feels like he’s somehow lost a part of himself. Even when he wasn’t utilizing it, he knew it was somewhere in the back of his brain, and if he _really_ needed to, he could use it again. Knowing that now, because he was afraid of his own abilities, he can’t, kind of makes him feel incomplete.

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” he mutters.

Infection glances back up and locks him in her gaze. “Oh yeah?” she challenges.

Dean’s shoulders deflate. “Yeah.”

She sighs. “Sorry,” she says quietly. “It’s just that – well, you always fit in. You always looked normal. It must have been so much easier.”

Dean shakes his head. “You think that’s easy?” he said. “Hearing your dad go off about how _muties_ are monsters and ought to all be killed, and knowing that, even though he doesn’t know it, he’s talking about you? Watching your brother mutilate himself to try to pass as normal? Looking in the mirror every morning and knowing that the person staring back at you is a freak?”

He clams up suddenly. Dean hasn’t talked that much about his feelings since… practically _never_ actually. He doesn’t remember the last time that happened.

Infection reaches out to touch him, but he flinches away and goes back to fixing the kitchen sink. She lowers her hand, and bows her head.

“Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean – I’m sorry.”

Dean grunts. “It’s nothing,” he says.


	12. Broken Barriers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra-long chapter today! Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also, I'm sort of fudging members of the Brotherhood right now, mix-n-mashing them from the movie 'verse and comic 'verse and sticking in the characters I'm most familiar with. If that bothers you, too bad, I don't give a shit. :)

This isn’t _working_.

This is _pointless_ and it’s _boring_ and it’s _not working._ Dean doesn’t know why he’s bothering with this crap because it’s pretty clear to him (and let’s be honest – to _everyone around him_ ) that this isn’t going to work.

“You’re getting tense again,” says Emma Frost. “Relax. Breathe.”

Dean draws in an exaggerated breath and lets it out in an explosion of air. This is dumb. He is not down with this touchy-feely bullshit.

“Dean,” says Emma warningly. Dean would roll his eyes at her if they weren’t closed. Instead he sighs long and loudly and sarcastically.

Emma makes a sound that’s not quite a huff through her nose. “Dean, we’ve already established that you have unusually strong natural mental shields, ones that I cannot break through. Unless you learn to trust me and lower those barriers, I won’t be able to help you regain access to your empathy.”

Dean opens his eyes and stands up. “This isn’t working,” he says. “We’ve been doing this for, what, three hours a day every day for nearly a week now. Whatever it is you need me to do to let you in, I can’t do it, Emma.”

Emma is still regarding him, her hands in her lap and her legs crossed. She looks like some kind of royalty or something – it’s no wonder that they call her the White Queen.

“You need to relax your mind, trust me, and let me in,” she says. “These meditative exercises are designed to put you in a calmed state, where your inhibitions will be lowered. It would work, if you would only stop being so tense and paranoid.”

“Being paranoid has only saved my life, oh, about a billion times so far,” Dean snaps.

“But now it is only hindering your progress, Dean.” She taps her fingers against her leg. It’s not fidgeting if Emma Frost does it, and it’s certainly not irritation. She doesn’t let those kinds of emotions shine through. “Surely there must be people you trust.”

Dean breathes in deeply. “My brother,” he says. “Sometimes my father. That’s about it.”

Emma cocks her head slightly. “What about Erik?” she says.

“Magneto?” Dean pauses, considering. “All right, yeah. I guess I trust him.”

Emma pauses, not saying a word, and Dean can tell from the way her eyes just slightly lose focus that she’s calling someone with her mind. Probably Magneto. Dean has never had her voice in his head, because apparently he has mental barriers so thick even one of the world’s most powerful telepaths can’t break through them. So he doesn’t know what it’s like to have her speak brain-to-brain. He imagines it’s a pretty weird feeling, though.

Then she sighs and readjusts her posture. “He’s on his way now,” she says. “I’m going to have him help me access your mind.”

Magneto opens the door to the little room Dean and Emma are having their session in. It’s still weird for Dean to see him without the purple cape and the spandex and the helmet. When he’s just kind of puttering around the house in a sweater he seems more like somebody’s old uncle than a badass mutant rights activist who could destroy you with your zipper.

Magneto sticks his hands in his pockets, casually. “What have you been having trouble with?”

Emma looks up at him. “Dean needs somebody he trusts before he lets his guard down enough for me to get through. I plan to connect the two of your minds first and then use that connection to gain access to Dean’s brain and break the mental barrier.”

Magneto nods. “Very well.”

Emma turns and fixes Dean in her gaze. “Now Dean,” she says, “this will only work if you absolutely trust Erik. Do you? Do you absolutely trust him?”

Dean looks at Magneto, and the man looks back at him and meets his gaze. He thinks about a gun, twisted and ruined on the floor, leaving him helpless. He thinks about the image of his father, encased in metal bands created from his own weapon. He thinks about a man who can (and has) lifted cars and stopped tanks in their tracks and twisted airplanes apart with a flick of his wrist and the power of his will.

But he also thinks about a man who met a thirteen-year-old boy’s gaze and decided that there was something there that was worth something. He thinks about a man who refrained from killing because two children were in need of a father. He thinks about a man who trusted Dean enough to let him into his home, even though he had no reason to trust Dean beyond his word.

“Yeah,” says Dean, and he closes his eyes and breathes deep.

This time, the connection works. He can feel the solid, steady thoughts of Magneto in his head.

_< You’re doing very well, Dean>_ thinks Magneto.

_This is weird_ , he thinks, and he feels the little chuckle down the line. It’s not like having his empathy back at all. It’s like hallucinating that he’s hearing things, not feeling extra feelings or thinking extra thoughts.

_< If you spend much time with telepaths, you will probably get used to this>_ Magneto replies.

_< Are you ready, Dean?>_ comes Emma’s high, cool voice.

_It’s still weird_ , Dean thinks. _But yeah, I guess I am_.

And then suddenly he’s not standing in the room anymore.

As far as he can tell, he’s suddenly in a house – his old home back in Lawrence, in the entryway. “What the hell?” he says, before realizing that Emma and Magneto are standing right behind him.

“This is a representation of your mind,” says Emma. “I picked the shape that you seemed most comfortable with. Think of it as a metaphor for the way you think.”

“Yeah, and that’s not creepy at all,” says Dean. Emma ignores him and begins walking up the stairs.

Magneto places his hand on Dean’s shoulder for an instant, and then he follows Emma up the stairs. Dean trails along, running his hand along the bannister and wondering what part of his brain this is supposed to be.

“It’s not a perfect analogy,” Emma calls out, and Dean starts before remembering oh yeah, right, telepath inside his brain.

The hallway at the top of the stairs is too long to be like their old home, too long to even fit in the size that their house was. There are too many doors. And yet, it feels familiar. It feels like this is the way the inside of his brain really ought to look.

And the door that, in Dean’s brain, would be Sammy’s bedroom, has been bricked up with huge grey cinder blocks and thick, impenetrable cement.

“Wow,” says Dean. And then, “Is that the crap we’ll have to get through to get to my empathy? Because that shit is not coming down any time soon.”

Emma reaches out to touch the barrier. “Ah,” she says. Dean would say it was almost uncertain, but this is Emma Frost we’re talking about. “Dean? Come here and touch the wall, please.”

Dean moves up to her and places the hand on the barrier.

The wave of feelings that hits him threatens to overwhelm him. _Insecurity and fear and what will dad think and self-loathing and you’re a monster dean and disgust and don’t want to feel the pain and can’t let anyone in and can’t control this and need to hide and_

Dean steps back, gasping. “What the hell was that?” Dean says.

Emma looks at him. She’s still got her hand on the wall, and Dean is suddenly uncomfortable knowing that she can feel that, that she knows that much about him. His paranoia is beginning to creep up again.

“Don’t, Dean,” she snaps. “If you throw me out of your mind, it will be very difficult to deal with this mess.”

Dean swallows and looks over to Magneto. When the older man nods, Dean sighs and forces himself to trust Emma. At least for the time being.

“You’ve created this barrier out of some of your strongest feelings, Dean,” Emma says. “Many of these are very nearly the core of who you are. We will need to get rid of them, or at least move them to a different part of your mind, if you are going to accept your empathy again.”

Dean resents the implication that he is, at his core, a frightened, insecure child who is dependent on his father for any sense of self-worth, but he puts the feeling away and focuses on the task. It’s almost like what he does when hunting.

“All right,” he says. “What do we need to do?”

“First,” says Emma, “We need to dissolve, or move, or shift this barrier.”

Dean stares at the very solid-looking cement. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s happening any time soon.”

“I don’t know,” says Magneto. “This is in your mind, Dean, after all.”

Emma nods. “You simply need the confidence that you _can_ move it, and it will.”

Dean frowns at her. “Who are you, Yoda? Do or do not?”

“Trying is perfectly acceptable,” says Magneto.

Dean looks at him, at the confidence in those eyes. “All right,” he says, “I’ll try.”

He goes to the barrier and places his hands against it. This time he lets the feelings wash through him, and then decides he isn’t going to let them govern his life anymore. Bracing himself against the floor, he takes a deep breath and pushes.

It’s heavy, and it’s difficult, and he can hear the cement block scraping against the wall and the floor beneath his feet groaning in protest, but it moves. Just a bit. Just enough that it gives Dean the confidence to push even harder.

The further away from the door it gets, the easier it seems to push it, until Dean has finally moves the thing away from the door completely, no longer blocking it.

Emma regards the wall as he steps back and wipes his brow. “Ideally, we would do away with that completely,” she says. “It would be far too easy for you to just place it back there again.”

Dean shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he says. She quirks an eyebrow at him, but says nothing.

After a moment to catch his breath, Dean looks at the door. He closes his eyes, places his hand on the handle, mutters “Here goes nothing,” and opens it.

He is thrown back into his real body so violently he gasps, and wonders if Emma and Magneto were also dumped out.

But then his perception expands, and the feelings swarm around him, and he can’t think of anything else.

First it’s Emma and Magneto, their confusion and curiosity and a little bit of disorientation, and then their concern when he grips his head with his hands. In the other room he can feel Toad, who is elated because he’s winning something, and Blob is angry and frustrated. The girl down the hall, with the telekinesis, is so homesick she can barely breathe and the other girl she’s sharing a room with is crying and hates herself. Infestation is delighted by something on the TV and Mystique is amused but feels guilty for being amused. Another member of the Brotherhood is feeling grief and sadness, and someone has got a surge of hate for humans everywhere, a murderous bloodthirsty rage. Out on the street there’s a jolt of hatred for mutants, a thick, cloying disgust from some random passerby. The pain of the drunk in the alley a block away explodes through his head, and he feels the predatory triumph of the mugger about to fleece him for all he’s worth.

Dean is losing himself in the situation, the sensations roiling together and swirling and filling, it’s overwhelming, he can’t think, he’s angry and sad and elated and amused and frustrated and panicking and he doesn’t know which of them, if any, belongs to him.

He wants the emotions to go away, they need to go away _now_.

Emma places her hand on his shoulder and grounds him just for a moment. “No, Dean,” she says. “Don’t put the barrier back up. _Close the door_.”

And Dean obeys. Instead of letting that hunk of concrete leap back into place, he just shuts the door.

The feelings die away. He knows they’re there, that he can access them again if he ever wants to, but now they’re just a low hum that he can ignore easily.

Tentatively, he opens the door a little bit again, and he can feel Emma’s satisfaction and Magneto’s pride.

Magneto is proud of him.

He doesn’t let the tears fall, doesn’t even let them into his eyes. “Thanks,” he whispers.

“You’re welcome,” Emma says, but Dean is looking at Magneto. And Magneto smiles.


	13. Uncomfortable In Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day!

It’s not easy, getting used to having his power back.

For one thing, Dean can’t completely block all the feelings from people around him. The first time he wakes up in the middle of the night with a hard-on and intruding feelings of sexual arousal and realizes that somebody in the house is jerking off so hard that it’s jumped into his brain, he wonders if his life wasn’t better when he couldn’t feel people.

Strong feelings, big feelings, they come through whether he wants them to or not. It’s hard for him to even spend a few minutes near a girl named Winifred, because she’s so depressed that his whole mind is flooded and he finds himself contemplating suicide.

Being ruled by other people’s feelings is a bitch, and when the other people in the house learn that he’s basically picking up Emotion Radio, they start to avoid him. Dean can’t really blame them. He’s still wary of Emma Frost and the amount of knowledge she has about the inner workings of his brain, and he understands not wanting your secret feelings paraded around for some stranger to know.

But the dense cloud of suspicion he’s living in now is almost as bad as Winifred’s depression. Dean remembers as a kid really hating the feeling of suspicion, and doing everything possible to suppress it in his parents. It’s still true, but now he can’t get rid of it, can’t stop the others in the house from feeling suspicious and defensive around him, and it’s starting to make him feel really lonely.

At one point, he decides to intrude on Magneto’s life and talk to him about it. Magneto is one of the few people who don’t freak out whenever Dean is in the room. Mostly his emotions are relatively calm – easy to shut behind the door if Dean needs a break, and even though most of them are solemn sadness and a touch of passionate anger about mutantkind, at least they’re not as painful as suspicion or as destructive as depression.

“Hey, Magneto?” he says, and the man looks up from his work.

“Dean,” he says, and Dean’s got his brain open enough that he feels the little spark of pleasure Magneto gets when he sees him. “Come in. Is something wrong?”

Dean comes in. It’s still hard to talk about his feelings. “I don’t think I really belong here,” he admits. “I don’t think anybody likes me.”

Magneto leans forward in his chair, and his concern washes gently into Dean’s thoughts. “You’ve only been here a short time, and in the eyes of many of the Brotherhood, you haven’t really proved yourself yet,” he says. “Give it some time, they’ll come to accept you.”

Dean sighs. “I’m not sure I can live like this for that long,” he admits.

The concern gets stronger, and Magneto frowns. “What do you mean?” he says.

“The suspicion,” Dean says. “The distrust. I walk into a room, even with my power off, and it just breaks into me.” Dean tries to find a description for the sensation that Magneto will understand. “It’s like living in a cloud of smoke that keeps choking me. I don’t want to live like that.”

Magneto looks up, thinking. Dean can feel a bit of concern, but then there’s something like fond remembrance and vague pleasure. “I think I know a place that might be better for you,” he says.

“Yeah?” Dean doesn’t really want to leave Magneto – the dude is awesome – but maybe some time away from the rest of the Brotherhood wouldn’t work.

“I have a colleague, his name is Charles Xavier,” says Magneto. “He runs a school in New York for mutants.”

“Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters,” says Dean. “My brother is actually attending there right now. I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

Magneto smiles and Dean picks up on a kind of bittersweet feeling from him; happiness and grief and anger sort of mingling together. “We were once very good friends,” says Magneto. “Nowadays we don’t always see eye to eye. But I can take you to them at the school, if you’d like.”

Dean hesitates. “I’d like to at least visit,” he admits. “See my brother again. I haven’t seen him in years now.”

Magneto smiles. “Then I will take you. Tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” says Dean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. Guys we just broke 10,000 words with this chapter. :D


	14. Family Reunions

If Dean had a gun or a knife on him, he’d be running his palm over the handle, a slow, soothing, achingly familiar motion as he swirls the tip, around and around. Just to know that it’s there, to feel it against his hand and be assured that he can have it out and ready to defend himself in a fraction of a second.

There’s really no point in having a gun, not here, with Magneto by his side (the paranoid part of his brain whispers that he should have brought one _anyway_ ). So instead Dean is tapping out a silent drumbeat on his thigh, tiny, unobservable little motions.

_Tappity tap-tap, tap tap. Tappity tap-tap, tap tap._

Saying he’s not nervous would be a lie. He hasn’t seen Sam in nearly three years now, and despite the fact that Sam’s issues were with their father and not with Dean, there’s still bound to be some bad blood there. But Dean’s not going to admit he’s nervous, not even to Magneto.

Dean’s got his empathy locked behind the door. He and Emma Frost talked a lot about privacy and what she called “the right to an inviolate inner self.” What Dean heard is that everybody should be safe in their own mind, and he is absolutely behind that sentiment (even if your own mind isn’t really the safest place).

Dean doesn’t want to violate Sam’s inner self before Sam even knows he’s capable of violating it.

Magneto shifts his stance slightly, and Dean glances over just in time to see the hint of concern on the man’s face. Dean’s not even sure if Magneto told Xavier they were coming or if he’s just assuming that his colleague will let them in. For a second, Dean wonders at the relationship the two men might have had, way back when, but he discards the thought. It’s none of his business.

Eventually, there’s movement in the driveway leading up to the school, and a little bald man in a wheelchair rolls up to them. But it’s not the old guy that Dean is watching, it’s the figure accompanying him.

Sam has slightly longer hair, and seems even taller than the last time Dean saw him. Part of that is that in addition to his 6’5” frame, Sam now sports a magnificent pair of wide antlers, which makes him well over seven feet tall. Their breadth stretches out further than the ends of his shoulders – they look unbearably heavy.

“Hey Sam,” says Dean, taking a slight step forward.

Sam tilts his head slightly, sending his huge antlers into a wild diagonal line. “What are you doing here, Dean?” he says.

Dean swallows. “I missed you,” he says. “I wanted to see you.”

They stare at each other a moment. Dean is too hesitant to come forward and give Sam a hug. He’s vaguely aware of the fact that Magneto and Xavier have started up a quiet conversation to their side.

“So I see you’ve stopped cutting your horns,” Dean says, gesturing to the protrusions.

Sam rolls his eyes. “They’re not horns, Dean. They’re antlers.”

“What’s the difference?”

Sam eyes him for a second. “Short version? Antlers branch and are shed every year. Horns generally don’t and aren’t.”

Dean nods. “Ah. Cool.”

There’s another awkward pause.

Finally Sam huffs, steps forward, and pulls Dean into a rough hug. “I missed you too,” he says.

Dean has to avoid banging his head into Sam’s antlers, but he appreciates holding his little brother in his arms once again. “Yeah,” he says, refusing to get soppy about it.

Sam is smiling when they pull apart – just a bit of a smile, but enough of one that Dean feels like he’s looking at his little brother again. “C’mon. I’ll show you around the grounds.”

“Cool,” says Dean, wondering to himself when exactly is the best time to share his mutant power.

The grounds are pretty big, and they don’t really talk much. Once they head inside, Dean starts noticing the way Sam has to duck and shimmy sideways to get through most of the doorways, because his antlers just get in the way.

He has to ask. He can’t not. “So why did you stop cutting your antlers, Sammy?”

Sam freezes for a moment, and Dean winces. It was a bad question to ask. He knows it’s not exactly moral, but he opens the door up a little bit anyway. Just a bit.

And suddenly Sam’s anger and fear are sneaking into his thoughts, the resentment and a tiny, tiny bit of hate. Dean wishes he could take back his words.

“Hey, man,” he says. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Sam shakes his head, and then looks for a long moment at Dean. Dean can feel the wonder, the little hint of curiosity mingling with the fear.

“No,” Sam says. “Actually, I kinda do want to talk about it. There’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”

And so Dean follows Sam deeper into the mansion.


	15. Inspiration from Furry Blue Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, you guys, I am SO SORRY that there was such a huge gap. See the end notes for a little about why there was a huge gap and why there will probably continue to be a huge gap. In the meantime, enjoy!

If Dean were the kind of person who easily got lost, he’d get turned around inside this place in about five minutes. This mansion is absolutely friggin’ huge, and it’s got about a million hallways and corridors and stairs and everything looks all the same. Of course, as he’s going, Dean is memorizing the way he came, cataloguing exits and noting important landmarks, so he’s not lost. But it’s still a little disorienting.

Sam leads him down, basement after subbasement, and Dean can’t help but wonder if this mutant school is like one of those termite mounds or an iceberg, where there’s way more going on beneath the surface than there is above.

Turns out he’s right.

Sam and Dean walk past a window that looks into a huge room, and Dean has to do a double take because were those _lasers_?

Sam has to look back over his shoulder to call Dean, because he’s stopped and is just staring through the window as some people – _kids_ really, none of them can possibly be more than eighteen – fight off what look like giant robots with laser vision and super strength.

“Oh, that’s just the Danger Room,” Sam said. “Come on, I want you to meet someone.”

Dean follows reluctantly, his eyes still glued to the sight until they turn a corner and it’s impossible to see the fighting kids anymore. Still he looks back, like if he looks hard enough he’ll be able to see them and, who knows, maybe do something about it.

“What the hell was that?” he asks Sam.

“Training,” says Sam.

“Training for what?” says Dean, but Sam just looks away and doesn’t really say anything. Dean hates it when his little brother won’t give him a straight answer.

“These are the medical labs,” Sam says a little while later as he leads them through a door. “Hank is probably down here.”

Dean looks around. It looks like what he’s always imagined a scientist’s lab would look like – all white floors and ceilings and doors, with flasks and vials and bottles filled with multi-colored liquids. He doesn’t see anybody here though. He’s so busy looking _around_ that he forgets to look _up_.

That’s when a giant blue fuzzy thing descends suddenly from the ceiling.

Dean doesn’t jump, but it’s a near thing. Instead he locks his knees, right hand going for a weapon that he’s not carrying as his left flings out to protect Sammy. For a second, the world is just the way it’s always been, Dean is there to protect his little brother from whatever is coming after them.

Then the fuzzy blue thing chuckles and Sam slaps Dean’s hand down. “C’mon, Dean,” Sam says, annoyed.

“I’m sorry,” says the fuzzy blue thing, “I should have announced my presence in a less unsettling manner. I’m Hank McCoy. How do you do?”

Dean takes the fuzzy blue paw extended toward him with unease, still watching this – he supposes _thing_ is a little unkind – _guy_ to see if he’s going to try anything. The handshake is warm, cordial, and then McCoy leaps into the air again, climbing over the walls until he reaches one of the lab tables and starts playing with flasks.

“I was just finishing an experiment,” he says. “I presume you’re Sam’s older brother Dean?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, still boggled by the fact that there is apparently a mutant who is completely covered in blue fur.

He turns to Sam. “So this is the person who convinced you to quit cutting your horns?”

“Antlers,” Sam says, reaching up briefly to touch one. “Yeah.”

Dean looks back over. “I guess I can see why.”

McCoy chuckles again. “Because a mutant as unusual-looking as myself would make less unusual mutants feel more comfortable, perhaps?”

Dean squirms. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he says.

McCoy just smiles at him over the top of his glasses. “People seldom do. It’s alright – I’m really quite used to it.”

Sam turns to Dean. “Yeah, Hank’s the reason why I stopped cutting my antlers. I guess he let me see that there’s really no shame in being a mutant, that’s it’s okay to be proud of who I am. We talked a lot, especially about my antlers.”

Dean doesn’t have to have his empathy on to recognize that Sam is defensive now, like he thinks he has to somehow prove that being a mutant isn’t evil or bad or shameful. He realizes that Sam still thinks he’s just human, that he thinks the same way Dad does – maybe even that he hates his little brother, the mutant.

“I wish I had that much confidence in myself,” Dean mutters.

Sam frowns. “What do you mean?”

Dean sighs. “That’s what I came here to tell you, kinda. I’m a mutant, too.”

McCoy looks up at that and Sam leans forward. “What? Really?” he says.

“Yeah,” says Dean. “I’m kinda like a mind reader.”

“A telepath?” says McCoy.

Dean shakes his head. “No. I just get feelings. What’s the word…”

“Empath,” says McCoy.

Dean nods. “Yeah, that.”

Sam frowns deeper. “You mean you can sense what I’m feeling?”

Dean raises his hands. “Not all the time. For a long time I couldn’t do it at all, and now I’ve learned to control it. I swear, Sam, I’m not reading your mind or shit like that.”

McCoy leans forward. “I’ve never met a pure empath before. I’d be very interested in running some experiments.”

“No.” Dean doesn’t even have to think before he answers. “No experiments.”

McCoy shrugs, his hands in the air. “All right. No experiments.”

Dean looks at Sam. “Look. Can we talk? Privately?”

Sam stares for a long moment. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and he leads them into the hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started writing this story, I had a cute idea for a universe which was 100% inspired by bismoran (feministsupernatural on tumblr). It was fun, interesting, and was just an idea about what the Winchesters' mutant powers would be.
> 
> This story never really had a plot, and unfortunately, I'm at that point in the story where I don't actually know what happens next. This is often a problem for me when my stories hit about 15k. For previous chapters I've had a pretty good idea of what I needed to build up to. At this point, though, I don't know what happens next, so I don't know quite what I need to foreshadow/build up to/etc.
> 
> Hell, I don't even know where this story ends.
> 
> So this story will probably update very sporadically. Sorry.


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